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Walk on the Ocean’s Floor

January 4, 2012

People walking on the ocean floor at Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick. Photo: New Brunswick Tourism and Parks

We have mentioned that extraordinary vertical variance of the Bay of Fundy’s great tides in many of our reasons to visit Fundy. Near the head of the Bay, towering sea cliffs and sea stacks are exposed at low tide with a vertical variance that can exceed 50 feet or 15 metres.

The horizontal variance between low and high tide is equally astonishing – up to 3 miles or 5 kilometers. You do, however, have to be careful when you explore the exposed ocean floor because the water can rush back in at over 10 meters per minute! As a general rule, the ocean floor is accessible for exploring three hours before and three hours after low tide.

Therefore during Fundy’s low tide cycle you are literally able to walk, and explore, the ocean floor.

Ground covered only a few short hours earlier is revealed and the potential for finding newly exposed treasures, such as fossils, sea glass and semi-precious stones, make it easy to spend hours combing the shores.

This was the 52nd (and last) article in our “52 Reasons to visit the Bay of Fundy” series. Click here to check out the full list of reasons to visit the Bay of Fundy!

TeresaSeptember 9, 2014

Mike PostmaSeptember 9, 2014

You don’t absolutely have to, a lot of people will just walk around on their bare feet. In a lot of spots it’s just soft mud and most rocks are nice and round because of the erosion caused by the tides. Of course I can’t 100% guarantee there won’t be anything sharp on the ocean floor, so if you have an old pair of shoes you don’t mind getting muddy it’s a little safer to wear those.

There are plenty of places along the Bayoffundy where you can drive right up to see the tides. Pretty much any wharf will fit the bill. My personal favourite is Halls Harbour, check out this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbzwzrZXUKA) and you’ll see you can park right next to the tides. There’s also a great little restaurant there, overlooking the tides.

Kim MacDonaldDecember 8, 2014

The question on where can you see the tides in Nova Scotia, similar to Hopewell Rocks is at Burntcoat Head Park in East Hants, Nova Scotia. You can take a great hike on the ocean floor.

Burntcoat is THE site of the world’s highest recorded tides. They aren’t at Hopewell Rocks…and Blomidon near Wolfville doesn’t allow you to experience the tides as you do at Burntcoat.

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